Right place, right time... or is it?

Only a total of 5 comments on the last post?! Come on, did I turn away all our fans by neglecting to have any updates for awhile??? Get with it people! Make me feel needed!

The latest has basically consisted of more waiting and hopes being raised and disappointments soon following. Not really any good news to report, but an update I suppose could be given nonetheless.

We decided, with the lack of frequent updates to the Estonia photo listing, to un-rule out domestic adoption. At this point we don't really care where the child currently lives, as long as we can adopt them with reasonable limits on chaos during the process. Too much to ask for? REASONABLE chaos? If we thought the international adoption process was irritating, disorganized and full of people who don't seem to care, try right here in our own national stomping grounds! We've come to the conclusion that the first rule for anyone attempting to adopt is to assume the following three things:
1) Nearly no one will/can help you, except what you make them do, even if you are paying them for the service. No one works to find a child that will be a good match for you.
2) Everybody lies. (Which all "House" fans already know.)
3) No one really acts like they care if you, as a perfect adoptive parent, will get a child.

We've been scouring the state photo listings for the last couple weeks or more (lost track), which is a chore because they all have different websites, some states with more than one, and they all have different rules for finding out more info on a "waiting child" you see listed. They all require an up to date home study, so at least we have that. Some require that your social worker make contact with the child's case worker directly (case worker says "I ain't speaking to no stinking adoptive family! Can't be bothered... So have an incompetent social worker who couldn't care less about the adoptive families contact me instead so I can blow everyone off.") Note: this is not to say that OUR social worker (Stan) doesn't care. He does. But not caring is not uncommon.

There have been at least 10 kids that we would consider adopting, depending on info we acquire about them. Some we have not been able to learn squat about. Some we would call about when they look nice from the picture and description, and then call and hear a laundry list of about 100 special needs (emotional and mental mostly). Not just one or two, but the worst things you can think of behaviorally. Unfortunately we can't risk having a child who will murder all our animals just to get their way. Or a child that is at great risk of "maybe never loving anyone.... ever!"

THEN the ones that actually turn out to be good... Guess what? Even if they're just listed, they are almost always already taken. Or the case worker is not accepting anymore home studies for consideration.

Example of our most recent and most severe disappointment:

Last Thursday afternoon a listing popped up on the Arkansas photo listing page. (The listing will henceforth be referred to as "the listing" - as I have an extreme aversion currently to divulge any details about this failed attempt beyond the facts of the events that have led us to become so disgusted with the adoption process {even more than usual!}.)

This listing was perfect, relatively speaking. If we could have clicked "Buy it now", we would have without another thought (as long as there was a return policy for "not as described"). This listing was such that I could immediately picture "the listing" being part of our family. Living here... That hadn't happened yet with any other possibility. The listing even looked like me somewhat. LOL

Jason is the one that saw the listing and called me while I was out on an appointment. He gave me the contact info for the photo listing website so I could call them and get the case worker's contact info. I called them (20 minutes before they closed) and they said that the webmaster was working from home that day, the listing was just put up by her that afternoon, and they didn't have the case worker's contact info yet. He said I could call the next morning to find out.

Not being able to wait, when I got home I found the webmaster's email address (it was listed on the front page of the website in the sentence "If you encounter problems with this website, contact our webmaster.") and wrote begging for the case worker's info. Long shot, probably... But at 9pm that night she wrote back with the case worker's email and phone number.

I emailed the CW that night, definitely being the first who could have possibly gotten the information, hoping that would make a difference.

Friday morning I had Stan email the CW our home study. I called the CW's phone number when the office opened, and was disappointed to find out that the CW was not in the office that day. So then we had to wait in anxiety and anticipation all weekend until yesterday morning when I could try again. But, again, she was out of the office yesterday for the whole day.

This morning, once again, I call. Finally I get in touch with the CW. I explained that I got in touch with her as soon as the information was available because we were just so anxious and excited to learn more about this listing, and that my SW sent her the home study by email on Friday, and I wanted to know if she got it and if we would be considered for this listing. She asked if she had told me to send her the home study, and I said no. I told her I wanted her to have it already just in case. She said that they were no longer taking home studies for the listing, that they had narrowed it down to two home studies already, and that they planned to make a decision on a match today. I asked how that could be, since the listing was just put up Thursday afternoon. She said the listing has been on a completely different website ("Heart Gallery" - which some regions of some states have, which are professionally taken photos of waiting children, and are not listed on state photo listing websites) for several months and they already had gotten many home studies for the listing. I told her that I was very disappointed because we did everything possible to find out about it as soon as it went up, and was there any way our home study could be considered, too. She said (probably the most anxiety-inducing statement she could have made) that she would read the home study and if it was better than the two they had narrowed down, then yes. She said if this didn't work out, they had others that were similar and not listed on the websites yet, and she would let me know who we matched well with.

So she left a glimmer of hope to ensure our holding on to the end of a tiny little unraveling string that was already cut, torn, broken and stolen by other families.

What's so irritating, besides the obvious, about this particular situation is that we didn't find out about this listing a week or two too late. We find out the DAY that it's too late. If we found out a week from now, I would have called and she would have said "Sorry we've already chosen a family for this listing", and I would have said, "Oh... Thanks anyway... *sniff*" and hung up. We find out right when it seems like it could have gone the other way: "Oh, you're perfect for this listing, we're so glad you contacted us today because we were going to make a decision today!"

If it does turn out differently and this works out - it would be interesting because if things fell into place any differently up to this point, then we would be definitely without any hope. But at this point, even my optimistic and positive personality is left wondering if a little unlikely hope is worse than just knowing for sure.

The worst part, I think, is that this kind of thing happening yet again (even if we tried hard not to get our hopes up about a certain listing) makes us want to give up. It's really terrible that the system is set up to discourage and eliminate desires of people who have a relatively great situation for needy kids.

So maybe, as past disappointments have turned out, this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. I don't know. I like to think so! I'd love to write a post here that is either good news or something other than simple facts someday! I keep reminding myself (and Jason!) that we found this "perfect" listing within a relatively short period of time looking at the US listings. It only seems like forever because we've been at the whole process for more than 9 months. But it's hard to keep looking, preparing for disappointment, because it makes you force yourself to care less, which makes you less interested overall, which means it may not ever happen.

OK commenters, loyal fans, and the disloyal ones too... Ready, set, go!